Smith-Kintanar Vacation 2001

We always say that next year we will go on a shorter vacation and do less. This year we really did. You may remember that our trip last year went through SE Utah. Well we decided that this part of the Four Corners area definitely merited more exploration.

Day 1: Friday, 27 Jul 01.

We left Corrales before our planned start time of 8 am and headed northwest up 44 (now US 550). We made a stop at the Burger King in Farmington (our only fast food stop the entire trip)for bathrooms and leg stretching.

We continued on (via US 64 ) to the trading post at Teec Nos Pos, where we stopped for lunch. As with most lunches, we ate out of our coolers in the parking lot. While poring over the map, we noted again how close we were to Canyon de Chelly National Monument and vowed to visit there soon. Teec Nos Pos is only a few miles from the Four Corners Monument, but you may remember that we stopped there last year. We made the obligatory tour through the trading post but bought only drinks.

Then, suitably rested and refreshed, we drove the remaining 1.5 hours to Blanding, Utah via US 160 W to Mexican Water, AZ then US 191 N through Bluff UT. Once at Blanding, we visited Edge of Cedars State Park museum and did a short hike through the ruins (Best Hikes with Children in Utah #71). Ryan did the Jr. Ranger program at Edge of Cedars and got a badge and a neat poster. Here is a sculpture they had. You can't see it the picture, but it has lots of holes to form interesting shadows that change during the day and the year.

Next, we went to the Dinosaur Museum ; well worth the visit if you are at all interested in dinosaurs. We stayed at a motel in Blanding ; with a pool, of course.

Saturday, Day 2:

We got an early start and continued north on US 191. After passing through the quaint town of Monticello, near the Abajo mountains, we turned west on 211. Our first stop was Newspaper Rock , which is a famous petroglyph site. True to its name, the cliff face was just covered with petroglyphs and we spent 10 to 15 minutes just taking it all in.

We continued on 211 to . Canyonlands National Park - Needles District After checking in at the Visitor station, and picking up Jr. Ranger books for both kids, we headed out to explore the park.

We drove the main road to the Big Spring Canyon Overlook and did the Slickrock Trail ( Best Hikes with Children in Utah # 70) . This is a 2.5 mi loop trail with plenty of slick rock, potholes, cairns, cryptobiotic soil and spectacular views. The kids already knew all about cryptobiotic soil and knew that they were not to step on it. This was a pretty hot trail, so we were glad we got an early start and had plenty of water. After the hike, we headed back toward the visitor center and turned on to a nice dirt road to the Elephant hill picnic area for lunch.

Then we did the Cave Spring Hike (Outdoor Family Guide to the Southwest's Four Corners pp. 200-201), a 0.6 mi loop trail by some old cowboy camps and a natural spring between rock layers in a cave, and then up a cliff via some ladders and back over slickrock. Dylan wouldn't go up the ladders, so he and Karen Ann turned back and met the others at the other end. We continued heading back toward the visitor center and just before we got there, we stopped and did the very short Roadside Ruin Hike (OFGttSFC pp. 199-200). On the way out of the park, we stopped at the visitor center to turn in our books and get our Jr. Ranger Badges.

Here are some no so happy hikers.

We drove E on 211 back to US 191 and continued N for about an hour to just outside Moab, where we stopped and set up camp at the Moab KOA . The kids thought this was great- camping AND a pool! The only drawback, no campfires.

Sunday, Day 3:

Sunday morning we drove back south on US 191 about 20 miles and turned W onto the Needles Anticline Overlook Rd. The road is paved for about 10 miles, and then there is a Y. We took the right fork toward the Anticline Overlook. This road is not paved, but about 12 miles of very good gravel. We were doing 40mph on it. And the views were wonderful! Perhaps as dramatic as those in the Grand Canyon. We drove back to the Y intersection and took the fork to the Needles overlook, which is paved so it was no problem. The views at this overlook were just as spectacular and looked back to the area where we had just been hiking the day before. At each overlook, there was some hiking involved in order to take in all the views. Perhaps because of the remoteness and our early start, we saw only about 6 cars during the entire drive along Needles Anticline Overlook Rd.. (Map available from http://www.go- utah.com/destinationGuide.cfm?objectID=4CE27855-4C64-11D4-AADB0050DAB32CA6 and click on area map.)

On the drive back to Moab we stopped at Hole 'n the Rock. This is a 5000 square foot house carved into the side of a mountain. It was interesting, but a quintessential tourist trap.

After lunch at our campsite, we did the Moab tourist thing and checked out downtown, bought some T-shirts, visited the information center, etc. It was very hot so we weren't motivated to do any hikes. Instead, we headed back to camp to cool off in the pool.

Monday, Day 4:

Monday morning, we drove into Moab to Adrift Adventures for our 1/2 day rafting down the Colorado river . Our put in was about 30 miles NE of Moab just off 128 near the Fisher Towers.

The rapids were pretty mild but the scenery was great. Amy, our guide was very nice and even let Dylan

and Ryan

row, or try to at least. The boys got into the water several times to swim.

There was a strong headwind the entire trip so our half-day trip ended an hour late.

After lunch at camp, we hiked Mill creek canyon (BhwCiU, #68). This mile-long hike involves a lot of wading in the creek. We got a little lost toward the end and couldn't follow the trail description but we had a great time nevertheless. Back at the camp, Karen and the boys played in the pool (more water!?!?) while Gorbo got the laundry started. Gorbo and the boys played miniature golf while waiting for the laundry to finish. We then got cleaned up and had a "real" dinner at the Moab Brewery.

Tuesday, Day 5

We packed up our stuff and headed north, to Dead Horse Point State Park and Canyonlands Island in the Sky district. We drove out to Grand View point Overlook in Canyonlands and listened to a Ranger talk on the geology of the region.

We had a picnic lunch nearby and hiked the Grand View point trail (OFGttSFC p. 205). This 2-mile round trip hike over slickrock out to a point is pretty easy and is fairly heavily traveled. The views are spectacular but there are some steep dropoffs near the edge. After the hike, we saw most of the viewpoints along the scenic road in Canyonlands. We had a lot of fun watching vehicles negotiating the Shafer Canyon road. Maybe we'll try it someday.

We then headed to Dead Horse Point State Park to set up camp. We drove out to the point to check out more spectacular views, then we had dinner and hiked a half-mile to the visitor center for a ranger talk.

Wednesday, Day 6

Gorbo got up early and drove to Dead Horse Point to check out the sunrise, while Karen and the boys slept in. After a quick breakfast, we all headed back to Canyonlands and checked out Mesa arch (BhwCiU #62). This is an easy 0.5 mi loop trail with a short spur to a beautiful arch and more stunning views. We did it at 8 am so we only saw one other party but it probably gets pretty busy later in the day.

Afterwards we went to Upheaval Dome (BhwCiU #63) which had some truly remarkable geological features. The 1.5 mi hike is somewhat demanding but features two viewpoints of a large crater probably formed by uplift and subsequent collapse of a salt dome. We then visited a few more viewpoints that we had missed the day before, had a picnic lunch and headed back to camp.

Back at Dead Horse, we did a 1.5 mi hike from our campground to Meander overlook which was through pinyon-juniper forest, over slickrock to the obligatory spectacular views. We completed this hike just before it started to rain. After this, we again drove out to the point to check it out in the rain, ever-watchful of not-so-distant thunderstorms. We had fun watching vehicles negotiate the other half of Shafer Canyon road. The rain abated and we headed back to camp for dinner followed by hike to the visitor center for a ranger talk.

Thursday, Day 7

We all got up early and drove to the point to enjoy the sunrise.

We then had breakfast and we drove over to Arches National Park so Dylan could get his Jr. Ranger Badge (he was too young when we were there last 3 years ago.) We had time to do a half-mile round-trip hike to Double Arch (OFGttSFC, pp. 209-211)

and then we hiked a quarter mile to the start of a Ranger talk. We were the only family on the Ranger program so we had the exclusive attention of two rangers. We hiked about 0.75 mi. the back way to the Windows arches and heard a real nice discussion about the ecosystem. The rangers dropped us off at windows arch and we did a short 0.25 mi spur to Turret arch (OFGttSFC, pp. 209-211) before heading back the 0.75 mi to our car. We then checked out an old homestead in Wolfe ranch but we didn't find out till later that there was some nice rock art just a little farther along. We stopped for a picnic lunch and then headed back to the visitors center so Dylan could pick up his badge.

After this, we drove back to the Island in the Sky and hiked the Aztec Butte trail. This trail was about 1.5 mi round trip and featured some pretty steep climbing up to the butte.

Dylan and Karen were a little intimidated by the climb but they both made it! Up on the butte we saw granaries and a couple of ruins.

It was pretty hot on this trail so we were glad to finish and head back to camp. After dinner, we hiked to the visitor center for another ranger talk.

Friday, Day 8

Friday morning we packed up the camp, picked up the boys' junior ranger badges and then hiked 1.5 miles out to the point (BhwCiU #61). Dylan got tired, so he and Karen enjoyed the view at the neck of the point while Gorbo and Ryan power-hiked 1.0 mi back to the car at the visitor's center and then drove back to rescue Karen and Dylan.

On our way to Goblin Valley State Park, we stopped at two little known dinosaur sites. Mill Canyon Dinosaur trail is on a dirt road about 1 mi. west off US 191 north of Moab. This half mile trail featured 14 sites revealing dinosaur fossils still in the ground.

The sauropod dinosaur track site was farther north on US 191 reached by a few mi. of dirt road. We hiked about 1/3 mi to get to the site which featured at least three sets of real clear tracks including that of a sauropod turning. Very cool.

We continued on to Goblin Valley State Park on US 191 and then on I-70, stopping in Green River to eat lunch in the city park. In the "small world" category, we bought supplies at the same store we shopped at when we camped in Green River in 1998 between Arches and Salt Lake City.

Continuing on I-70, we turned onto 24 to the turnoff for Goblin Valley and pulled into the park around 2:30 pm. The state park is one of the older ones in Utah, and the facilities are not as nice as other state parks in Utah, but serviceable. The campsites were too close together, and this problem was exacerbated by our proximity to a troop of clueless boyscouts. These guys did not know how to properly stake down their shelters or how to keep their campsite clean and their food sequestered from wildlife.

Goblin Valley is full of hoodoos, and is very remote. After setting up camp we headed out to visit the hoodoos (BhwCiU #58) but were thwarted by a thunderstorm. So we headed back to camp to watch as the boy scouts tents all blew away. Fortunately, we had had our share of troubles with strong winds so we knew how to secure our tent so it did not blow away. After the thunderstorm, we played in the Goblins for an hour,

got cleaned up, had dinner and went to the ranger program. Dylan got a goblin poster just like the one Edge of Cedars gave to Ryan. We headed back to camp and attempted to fall asleep while the boyscouts continued to make noise well past the quiet hours.

Saturday, Day 9

We got up bright and early to eat breakfast and break camp. We early birds got our revenge on the night owl boy scouts as the noise we made woke a few of them up. After breaking camp, we went over to the Goblins and played in them for an hour or so.

The ranger told us about a petroglyph site in the park, which we visited on our way out.

We then drove to Bluff via 24 and then 95. We stopped at Natural Bridges to eat lunch and to check road conditions. The weather looked good, so we took 261 south to the Muley Point Overlook. This involved some decent dirt roads and gave a great view of the San Juan River. We continued along 261 and stopped at Goosenecks State Park. This also had great views of the river.

We turned onto 163 to climb up over Comb ridge. While coming down, we had an interesting example of idiot driving. There was a pullout for an overlook, and just after that, the road switchbacked down Comb ridge. The road is wide enough for two way traffic, but just barely. Most of it is dirt, but the actual switchbacks are paved. Anyway, past the overlook, approaching the first switchback, someone decided that he needed to turn around and go back to the overlook. He was trying to get people behind him to back up the hill. We went around as he was trying to make a three point turn (did I mention there were no guardrails?)

We arrived in Bluff, and checked into the Recapture Lodge (which we had stayed at before). With some time to kill after swimming and before dinner, we walked down to Wild Rivers. We did a one day trip with them last year. Before we left the office we had booked a 5 day trip through the Goosenecks for next May. We ate dinner at the Twin Rocks Trading Post (again) and then returned to Recapture for the eveing slide show. We still haven't had time to look around the town. Maybe next May.

Sunday, Day 10

We drove straight home from Bluff, returning the way we came. We almost stopped for lunch in Cuba, but decided to just cruise on home. The kitties were glad to see us.